rose pursuant to notice of Senator LaBoucane-Benson on March 19, 2024:

That she will call the attention of the Senate to the life of the late Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, P.C.

She said: Honourable senators, I know that I’m very late in doing so, but I would still like to briefly pay tribute to the late Brian Mulroney, a consequential prime minister. As a parliamentary correspondent, I covered his last years in office, from 1989 to 1993. Those were not easy years. Above all, I am still very grateful for his persistent attempts to convince the English-speaking provinces that Quebec was a distinct society and should be recognized as such, even though his efforts were in vain. To me, his dogged determination on this issue was admirable, though it cost him in the polls. In his memory, I want to reiterate that Quebec is and will remain a distinct society.

With hindsight, Brian Mulroney’s legacy is undeniable, but at the time, I was 30 years old and a bold and insolent young journalist. Brian Mulroney was not very happy with me when I did a somewhat biased story contrasting a shot of champagne flowing freely at a Conservative event with a shot of the homeless people outside. The Prime Minister, who was a stickler for decorum, also got quite irritated with me in Kennebunkport when I began asking a question in French before President Bush had finished his answer. Oh boy! However, this Prime Minister also wanted to be liked and to charm those around him to the very end.

In June 1993, when he drove his Jeep up to Rideau Hall to formally hand in his resignation, I asked him if he had a valid driver’s licence, seeing as he had had a chauffeur at his disposal for nine years. He laughed and showed me his licence, saying he’d brought it along just for my sake.

I’m not the only member of my family to have known and admired Mr. Mulroney. My husband, Marc Gilbert, produced the TVA documentary that was broadcast to coincide with the release of his memoir in 2007. Shooting in Baie-Comeau was a memorable experience. Clearly happy to be there, Brian Mulroney sat down right on La Salle Boulevard for the first interview, but people walking or driving by kept interrupting to say hello to the former prime minister and member of Parliament.

The striking thing about the man known here as “the boy from Baie-Comeau” was that he remembered the names of everyone who came up to him. He was quick to shake their hand and ask how they or their family members were doing. He had once rubbed elbows with the high and mighty, but he was happy being back home in the small town where he had grown up, between francophones and anglophones, Catholics and Protestants.

For example, he recounted how, when he was a boy, his mother would send him to the paper mill every Friday to pick up his father’s pay. In those days, women weren’t allowed inside the mill, and wages were paid in cash. Once his mother had the money, she could go and buy groceries and, according to her son Brian, Friday night was the only night he could be sure of getting meat to eat.

I have one last anecdote to share. In his late teens, he spent an entire summer loading sacks of grain onto boats owned by Cargill, which used Baie-Comeau’s deepwater port to ship Western Canadian wheat to Europe. It was back-breaking work, since each sack of wheat weighed a hundred pounds and he had to carry them on his back. As Mr. Mulroney explained, that’s where he developed his respect for manual labourers, for those who didn’t get to choose their job and had to earn their living from their own labour.

I know Mr. Mulroney talked a lot about his humble origins, but it’s essential to be aware of them in order to understand the politician he became, the man who left his mark on our history.

May his soul rest in peace.